Quincy's World

I have been having a rough couple of days this week. I’ll not get into all the details, but one of the issues has been Quincy. He is really embracing his inner toddler – like he knows he’s almost two years old. Watching him melt down over silly things, bounce back, melt down again, etc. is really tiring – and can be disheartening at times. We have started using the basic “time out” discipline right now. For you hockey fans out there, I like to think of it like a penalty box. Quincy sits for 2 minutes or so and isn’t allowed any toys, the dog, etc. until we have a chance to talk to him and see if he’s ready to get up. It works great for him – changes around his attitude in no time flat. It is the bounce-back time outs that get tiring. So, since I have been feeling down recently, I decided that I needed to write out something on the humerous side to remind myself that Quincy is just being a toddler and not getting ready to mutiny – although that doesn’t explain the maps and tunneling tools in his room…….

I have already made a hockey reference, but now we’re going to switch to the sport – football. To the left is the vaunted penalty flag that is thrown by officials during the game. I decided to come up with my own list of penalties for Quincy. I will first list the football penalty and then the Quincy equivalent.

• Delay of Game – This penalty is almost always accompanied by one further down the list. Quincy is given warning about something so that if he doesn’t listen and does it anyways the flag is thrown. I’ll have examples at the end to show how it works in real life.
• Holding – A fairly straightforward call. Quincy grabs onto Ashby (usually at the head) and won’t let go. The tail is sometimes the target too.
• Defensive Pass Interference – This flag is thrown when Quincy struggles, kicks, flails, etc during a diaper change. The best cure for this infraction is to pin his arms and legs down until he complies – takes about 5 seconds.
• Illegal Forward Pass – Throwing food. Pretty straightforward with this one.
• Intentional Grounding – The second Ashby related flag – Quincy putting food on the floor for the dog to eat. This call is typically made during his snack as that is when he puts food on the floor.
• Illegal Block in the Back – The last of the Ashby related penalties. This flag is thrown when Quincy takes down the dog from behind, i.e. Ashby doesn’t see him coming. A toddler cheap shot.
• Unnecessary Roughness – The severest penalty that encompasses hitting, slapping, head butting, and things of that ilk.

So there you have my list of penalties. Here is how it works in the real world. This morning, Quincy was having his snack of Cheerios. Ashby, as usual, was hovering nearby to get the stray ones that fall – which does happen. I told Quincy not to feed the dog or that I would take his snack away and he’d be in trouble. Okay, the stage was set and off we went. Quincy ate for awhile, but then decided that it was more fun to feed Ashby his Cheerios. We were all in the same room too. Now I have to throw the flag, and if I had to make the call, it would sound something like this:

“We have multiple infractions on Quincy: delay of game (didn’t listen to warning – see how this would almost always be called?) along with intentional grounding and a few illegal forward passes. Relinquish your snack and head to time out.”

There you have it in action. And in case you were curious, Quincy received three time outs before his 2pm nap today – one unnecessary roughness and two intentional grounding calls.

I’m afraid that if I don’t try and make it funny to me, that it’ll just get tedious and tiresome.

We signed Quincy up for swimming lessons at the pool here in Hampden. It was built just a little over 10 years ago and we had heard great things about the facility. Since Quincy loves bath time so much, we figured he’d like a pool. His first lesson was this past Saturday, June 23rd at 10am.

We were a bit surprised that we were the only people waiting for the 10am lesson – it was, after all, the very beginners class. The pool has a graduated entry, so Quincy was able to walk right on down into the water. He seemed happy until the water got higher, and higher, and higher. Mom (the designated swimmer’s assistant) had to pick him up and bring him over to the area of the pool where the class was to be held (the water there was four feet deep there).

I should point out that the person leading the class wasn’t the usual person and she was about 17 years old or so. It was a little awkward at first because she had totally unrealistic expectations of what Quincy was able to do. For instance, he can’t hold a kickboard and use it – even I knew that one. Once things got going, Quincy no longer clung to Dara. His favorite part was when the “teacher” put a bunch of plastic balls in the water. Quincy loves balls – so he would try and get them – it was fun to watch. In fact, you can too! There is a video clip of him fetching balls in the water. I cut the audio for file size sake and there wasn’t anything good to here anyways.

After the structured lesson was over, Quincy had about 7 minutes of free time in the pool to use the small water slide or do whatever he wanted. He liked the slide somewhat and he liked walking out of the water and then walking back down into it. The last time he walked into the water, he slipped and, sploosh, he was gone. Dara picked him up, he sputtered for a second or two and then wanted to keep playing, but the lesson was over. He was upset when it was time to leave so we deemed the swimming a great success. Next week – the backstroke!

There is a photo gallery of 6 pictures – some of the pool and some of Quincy and Dara in the water.

Is it really summer already? Living in Maine does have its perks – it hasn’t been very hot very often as of yet. We have been back from vacation for almost a week and it feels like we never left. Oh well. We had fun while we were actually on the vacation itself. This trip was a momentous one also – it was the first time we didn’t take Quincy with us while we went on a side vacation, just the two of us.

We split the drive from Maine to Maryland into two days. We arrived in the Scranton area for our overnight stay and that night did not set a good tone for the trip. Quincy did not want to sleep in his pack and play – mainly because he could see us lying in the bed in the same room. Long story short – I (Steve) slept on a very short sofa that was next to his pack and play so that Quincy could hold my hand and know he wasn’t alone. This was the only hiccup on the trip.

The next day we arrived at Grammie and Grampa Rock’s house for lunch and stayed thru suppertime so they could get some Quincy face-time. Here’s a gallery of a few pictures taken at their house.

We then went to where Quincy would be staying while we went on to Charlottesville, Virginia – Gramma Dorcas’s place. We left Quincy the next morning. He cried for a minute and then was fine. We’re very proud that he did so well. We did fine also. A good time was had by all parties involved. Quincy got to go to a zoo and then see some of his extended cousins up in Pennsylvania.

While Quincy was having his fun, we drove down to Charlottesville to spend three nights at a nice bed and breakfast that we had dinner at once while we lived in C’Ville – the Silver Thatch Inn. It was hot, but not too bad and we had good weather almost the entire time we were there. Steve dragged Dara to Montpelier (home of James Madison) for half a day and you know what? Dara loved it. They are restoring the house to how it looked in 1820 – it had been enlarged by the DuPont family. I had visited it around 11 years ago and it looked nothing like it does now – it looks really nice. I kept my mouth shut about being a former Monticello guide as well. We even had our own private tour – just us and the interpreter.

After lunch that same day, we drove about 40 miles on the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park and completed one short hike up to some nice views. Here’s a gallery of photos of Montpelier and the Park – sorry there is no Quincy, but they are nice pictures nonetheless.

We also spent some time walking around the campus of the University of Virginia – Dara’s old medical school stomping grounds. Not much has changed except for the enormous John Paul Jones Arena which was built near to where we used to live. We also spent an evening with an old friend from my Monticello days who now works at the Law School.

All in all, we had a great trip.

The return drive to Maine was okay. We stayed with Brady, Tracey, Cassie and Max and then made the final push home the next day. I am almost done with the laundry. 🙂

Here are the 22 month old candid shots.

It wasn’t a good month for getting a lot of pictures. We were on vacation that week, so things were pretty hectic. These few pictures were taken at Gramma Dorcas’s apartment. Quincy is sitting in an ancient high chair – it was Gramma’s. 🙂